ADB agrees to finance dualisation of rail lines

LAHORE – Minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique has said the Asian Development Bank has agreed to give loan to the Pakistan Railway for the upgradation of railway lines. He said that efforts are underway to enhance the revenue of the railways up to 41 billion rupees.

He said the government is spending all available resources on the development and modernization of Pakistan Railways. He was talking to the media at railways headquarters on Thursday.

The minister said that a modern signal system will be installed and fence will be placed along with the railway tracks near the populated areas to avert accidents. He said Railways would complete double railway track project from Lahore to Peshawar under Early Harvest Projects of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The dualization of track from Shandra to Peshawar (455 Km) was included in upgradation of Main Line-I (ML-I) project under the CPEC, he added.

He said important cities that fall on the track are being dualized under the project and include Gujranwala, Wazirabad, Gujrat, Lala Musa, Jhelum, Rawalpindi, Attock City, Nowshera and Peshawar.

The track between Lodhran and Raiwind had now been dualized in two phases, from Lodhran to Khanewal (121Km) and Khanewal to Raiwind (246 Km), he said, adding that the Sahiwal-Raiwind section was opened for traffic on January 09, 2016. There were 1,290 labourers working on contract in Pakistan Railways.

He said the wages, perks and privileges were being provided to the contract employees as per basic scales of pay under the rules including pay, house rent, medical allowance, conveyance allowance, ad-hoc relief, leave travelling and medical facilities except entitlement for pension and General Provident Fund (GPF).